Investigation: Apple Failing To Protect Chinese Factory Workers

mrspoonsi writes with the findings of an investigation into working conditions at a factory that makes Apple products. Poor treatment of workers in Chinese factories which make Apple products has been discovered by an undercover BBC Panorama investigation. Filming on an iPhone 6 production line showed Apple's promises to protect workers were routinely broken. It found standards on workers' hours, ID cards, dormitories, work meetings and juvenile workers were being breached at the Pegatron factories. Apple said it strongly disagreed with the programme's conclusions. Exhausted workers were filmed falling asleep on their 12-hour shifts at the Pegatron factories on the outskirts of Shanghai. One undercover reporter, working in a factory making parts for Apple computers, had to work 18 days in a row despite repeated requests for a day off. Another reporter, whose longest shift was 16 hours, said: "Every time I got back to the dormitories, I wouldn't want to move. Even if I was hungry I wouldn't want to get up to eat. I just wanted to lie down and rest. I was unable to sleep at night because of the stress."

Comments

Re:Why Apple?

[kuzb]

Because Apple made a statement that they would not do business with companies that acted like this, and yet, here they are doing business with companies who act like this.

To think Apple has no influence in this situation is absurd.

You have selected.......

[Tailhook]

You have chosen to rationalize the exploitation of Chinese workers, probably using a product you or your employer couldn't afford to purchase if manufactured by someone that shared your pleasant lifestyle. Your rationalization is characterized by one or more of the following possible memes;

[_] Making iPhones in a Chinese factory is better than being a Chinese peasant
[_] iPhones/Pads would cost too much if I had to pay my fellow citizens to make them
[_] iPhones/Pads would cost too much given environmental regulations I vehemently insist on for myself
[X] All the other manufacturers are doing it too
[_] Some/Many/Most Chinese workers appreciate 70 hour weeks and breathing my aluminum dust
[X] It's not Apple, it's Foxconn
[_] It's not Apple, it's the Chinese government
[_] They should quit if they don't like it
[_] It's just capitalism at work
[_] It's just communism at work
[_] Apple's disposable workers are paid better than non-Apple disposable workers
[_] Apple's auditors didn't find any serious issues
[_] Some day the Chinese will be too wealthy to exploit
[_] Your Android is Foxconn too
[_] You're an Apple hater using Apple as a scapegoat
[_] I also work 60/80/100/120 hour weeks at my IT job
[_] Apple designers are in the US
[_] The US did the same thing to the British
[_] The US had slaves once too
[_] The US has prison labor today
[_] It's up to the Chinese to stand up to their oppressive government
[_] There are lines of willing workers outside Foxconn factories
[_] If any company were to stop the exploitation, I really think it'll be Apple
[_] Your free Linux runs on Chinese hardware too
[_] Foxconn workers think they have it great, so it's ok!
[_] Foxconn worker suicide rate is lower than Chicago's murder rate
[_] Foxconn worker suicide rate is lower than China's suicide rate
[_] We can't pollute the whole world!
[_] Half of all US households have an Apple product
[_] If we don't exploit them they'll never develop
[_] The suicide's families get the insurance money
[_] You're posting from a macbook/iphone/ipad right now
[_] There are suicide nets on American bridges
[_] Interns in the US don't get paid
[_] They don't beat the workers, apparently.
[_] Why is this news? We expect this from China.
[_] It's their country; we have no right to judge.

Re:And whose fault is this?

[CaptainDork]

I started to write this and then I canceled because you're a troll and then I got pissed and started/canceled again, but anyway, fuck you and stuff.

What about other manufacturers?

[Dzimas]

These conversations inevitably focus on Apple, but what about contract workers in similar factories who make phones for Samsung, Huawei, Microsoft (that still feels weird to write) and newcomers like OnePlus? I suspect that conditions are worse, simply because there is less external oversight.

Re:What about other manufacturers?

[thegarbz]

but what about contract workers in similar factories who make phones for Samsung, Huawei, Microsoft (that still feels weird to write) and newcomers like OnePlus? I suspect that conditions are worse, simply because there is less external oversight.

It's irrelevant what the conditions on those other products are because the companies haven't shouted from the roof tops how much they are doing to prevent the situation and don't have a wanky, shiny, HTML5 advertisement page linked prominently on their corporate homepage talking about how much awesome their supplier responsibility is than everyone else.

Apple isn't being held to a higher generic standard. They are being held to their own standard.

Pegatron vs Foxconn

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work in China, in tech business. I have been to several Pegatron's factories in China as well as to several Foxconn factories

All the factories that I have visited are, to put it mildly, LABOR CAMPS

But there is a difference

The factories run by Foxconn, the condition has improved. While it's still "labor camp" like, at least it is humane --- and Foxconn having been scarred by the exposure (of suicides and whatnots) they are at least playing by the rules

Not so in Pegatron factories

Conditions there are way beyond inhumane. They lock workers inside a room, with few ventilation, and ask the worker to apply strong chemicals, chemicals that can destroy body cells if inhaled, that are carcinogenic, onto the devices that they are working on

Many ex-workers from Pegatron develop all kinds of ailments after being exposed to those chemicals, and there have been numerous protest against Pegatron, in many Chinese cities

I am not saying that Foxconn is an angel, no, they run labor camps as well. But at the very least, they are toeing the line, for the moment

Re:Pegatron vs Foxconn

[ShanghaiBill]

If I understand the situation correctly, workers from other provinces require a permit to live in a different part of China.

No, this is wrong. No permit is required. If you move to a different province, you cannot use social services, such as hospitals, subsidized housing, and public schools, but you can live and work there. Use of the social services is NOT tied to employment. Instead rural workers just get screwed and there is nothing they, or their employer, can do about it. They pay taxes to support services they cannot use. Furthermore, this status is hereditary, so even if someone is born in the city, they still are considered "rural" if their grandparents lived in the countryside in 1949.

Does Samsung or Google have any influence?

[Brannon]

Most phones that are manufactured in these places are Android phones--yet we only here about Apple failing to protect workers. Cisco, Nintendo, Sony, Amazon, etc. all use these companies (Pegatron, Foxconn, etc.).

But it's okay because those companies never pretended to try to enforce higher standards--that's what you're saying, right? with a straight face and everything.

Re:12 hour factory shifts?

[TheGratefulNet]

AFTER unions got torn apart, in the US, perhaps.

but in my grandfather's day (turn of the 1900's), they fought for better working conditions and this is where the 5-day work week came from, time and a half (or more!) for overtime and I remember my GF telling me that 'every 4 hours, they are required to let us eat'. even today, at my 'cushy IT job' I don't get a food break every 4 hours. not that I need it, but its a thing that we once had and lost due to 'those evil unions' (sigh).

so, conditions were horrible in the US, we fought to make them more human-like and we won.

then, we lost them ALL. pretty much all of it.

cops and other groups have unions and no one says a word about it. but if IT guys or factory guys want to have a union, its 'hey, why do you hate america' and shit like that.

if my GF was still alive, he'd be furious for the things he and his peers fought for and yet we let drift away over the years.

Let's actually look at studies...

[Firethorn]

scholar.google.com if anybody's interested.

Effects of scheduled overtime on labor productivity - Abstract says 'no significant effect on productivity'
Productivity in manufacturing...: As hours/day dropped, they worked more days(of the year), so productivity remained about the same.
Scheduled Overtime and Labor Productivity: Quantitative Analysis: Productivity drops 10-15% for 50/60 hour work weeks.
Effect of Reducing Interns' Work Hours: Surprise, Surprise, NOT working medical interns for 24+ hours straight reduces serious medical errors by more than 50%.

Re: 12 hour factory shifts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Abbe.

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Munster/Industrial/chap17.htm

To quote:

"It was found that everywhere, even abstracting from all other cultural and social interests, a moderate shortening of the working day did not involve loss, but brought a direct gain. The German [p. 213] pioneer in the movement for the shortening of the workingman's day, Ernst Abbé, the head of one of the greatest German factories, wrote many years ago that the shortening from nine to eight hours, that is, a cutting-down of more than 10 per cent, did not involve a reduction of the day's product, but an increase, and that this increase did not result from any supplementary efforts by which the intensity of the work would be reinforced in an unhygienic way.[41] This conviction of Abbé still seems to hold true after millions of experiments over the whole globe."

Re:Why Apple?

[vux984]

Why is it Apple's fault or Apple's problem? First of all these are Foxconn workers. Secondly Foxconn manufactures hardware for a lot of companies, not just Apple.

Apple is profitable. Not merely "regular" corporation profitable. But the sort of profitable Fortune 500 corporations look at in awe of.

Further, it's profitable per unit made. Its not making a few cents and selling billions of units. Its making serious cash off every single solitary unit.

Unlike a lot of other businesses at the top of this exploitation food-chain, Apple can well afford to pay these guys a lot better, not change their prices, and STILL be quite profitable.

That arguably makes their situation both a lot less defensible and a lot more newsworthy.

Just as Nike in the 90s when they took major heat over thier sweatshop labor producing insanely profitable $120 runners. They too were a globally recognized brand selling a premium "lifestyle" product ... and its image conscious consumers didn't want to wear that guilt. And at the prices / profit margins involved they were paying for runners there was no reason Nike couldn't afford to treat its workers betters.

Fast forward 15 years. And its Apple. Same situation.